Locally, organizers of the Quick Lane Bowl scheduled for 2:30 p.m. Dec. 26 at Ford Field said they will give Maryland and Boston College players a "gift suite" — the marketing newspeak branding for the swag — that includes a FatHead custom wall decal of each player with their likeness; JBL headphones; $200 Best Buy gift card; customized Quick Lane Bowl Detroit-themed commemorative socks; Quick Lane Bowl merchandise including a commemorative football.

Each head coach will receive watches from Detroit-based company Shinola/Detroit LLC and a welcome basket featuring Michigan-made products.

Last year, the player swag haul's Best Buy gift card was $250. Overall, the Quick Lane Bowl giveaways seem to be in the middle of the pack in terms of cool stuff, but that's really a subjective call. For most players, the bowl experience, location and game are far more meaningful than the trinkets. I mean, playing football in the Bahamas or Miami in December? Not too shabby.

The bowl committees that run the 40 college football bowls on this year's schedule are each limited by the NCAA to 125 player gift packages per school, and the permitted value is capped at $550. The participating schools are permitted to buy additional gifts for players.

The universities and conferences are permitted to spend up to $400 on each player for awards such as championship rings for bowls, conference championship games and the playoff games. The most common bowl gift items are commemorative footballs, watches, sunglasses, backpacks, headphones and gift cards.

Goodyear Cotton Bowl Classic (1 p.m. Jan. 2): No. 15 Western Michigan and No. 8 Wisconsin get something, but bowl organizers for years have not disclosed the items.

Maryland and Boston College will get $1.2 million each for participating in the Quick Lane Bowl. However, their athletic conferences take all bowl payouts and pool them, along with postseason revenue, and equally apportion the cash (after bowl team expenses) among the member schools — meaning the tens of millions the Big Ten and ACC will collect from bowl season gets shared among schools whose football team didn't earn a bowl bid.

How 'bout them Lions?

Some tidbits and factoids related to the Detroit Lions jumped out at me this weekend:

The Lions have won their division, since the league moved to division play in 1967, just three times: 1983, 1991 and 1993. There's a pretty decent chance they'll win the NFC North this year, but have a tough road ahead. Up next is a Dec. 11 home game versus the ChicagoBears, who are a mess at 3-9. That's a must-win game. After that is a Dec. 18 game at the New York Giants (8-4), and Detroit historically is 8-11 against the Giants in New York. Then comes a Dec. 26 "Monday Night Football" game at Dallas, and the Cowboys are the NFL's best team at 11-1 despite starting a rookie quarterback and running back. The season ends with a home game Jan. 1 against the Green Bay Packers, and that's never an easy game. Green Bay is 6-6, and Aaron Rodgers in crunch time isn't fun to face. The Pack has the Seahawks, Bears and Vikings upcoming, and they'll likely win at least two of those. The division, and home field advantage in the playoffs, could be decided on the first day of 2017. It's very possible the Lions lose their final three games — break out the #SOL on Twitter — but this year's team has shown some talent, guts, luck and magic, so it's perfectly possible they win a few of those.

The Lions' last home playoff game was Jan. 8, 1994. It was a 28-24 Wild Card round loss to the Packers in front of 68,479 fans at the Pontiac Silverdome, and that was 22 years and 10 months ago, or 8,367 days.

Lions quarterback Matthew Stafford has thrown 41 touchdowns and no interceptions in the red zone dating back to the start of 2015. That's simply amazing. He's a free agent after next season, and his work in 2016 ensures he's going to get a massive payday before then. It's possible the Lions could use the franchise tag on him in 2017 and 2018, but I suspect both sides would prefer the security of a new long-term deal instead. Maybe three years, $25 million-plus annually?